Slick Dogs And Ponies 5 ( 2008 ) Guilt By Association / Air Traffic Control / Misguided Sheep / There's A Traitor In This Room / Sometimes You Just Want To / Tina / Stalker / Free Won't Be What It Used To Be / Swarming Of The Bees / Hopesick / Slick Dogs and Ponies

For their sophomore effort, 'Slick Dogs And Ponies', Louis XIV have married Scissor Sisters beats to strings by Beck's father ( really! ) to guitars that sound like Brian May from Queen. They've been labelled by the press ( and by themselves ) as 'glam rock', although in reality of course, they are no such thing. A Queen sounding guitar solo, lyrics full of innuendo and the odd funky disco beat may now be seen to be slightly campy things for an album to contain - but that doesn't automatically equate to glam rock. Glam was a state of mind as much as it was a sound. Louis XIV appear to be playing at this rock music lark, not helped by the fact one of their two vocalists sounds like the spawn of helium voiced Rush singer, Geddy Lee. As well as resembling Brian May, the guitars sit somewhere left field in the alternative scene, whilst oddly, also occasionally pausing for breath to imagine they are in a hair metal band. 'Slick Dogs And Ponies' is one of those albums that sounds perfectly fine on first listen, impressive even, yet repeated listens just reveal how hollow the band and their songs actually are. The quirky, yelped lyrics begin to irritate, the strings attached to every song become redundant and album highlights 'Misguided Sheep' and 'Guilt By Association' become about the only repeat playable tunes.

In short, 'Louis XIV' need to stop excitedly yelping, need to stop writing immature lyrics and then stop passing off things like 'Stalker' i could stare at you all night and you won't even notice as somehow deep. It's all something of a shame as this self-produced 2nd LP contains a few marvellous moments. The production is inventive rather than nostalgic and the actual sound of the record is rather lush. Is 'Hopesick' like a modern day ELO? Well, yes, it is. Were they trying to sound like The Beatles and failing? Probably, probably - American bands have a tendency to do that, after all.